


Silence Remains

by alleinimmer



Series: Silent Night [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Alternate Universe, Angst, Blood and Injury, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Communicating, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Feelings, But he's not a bad parent, Case Fic, Dick Grayson Whump, Drug Cartel, Drug Dealing, Drugs, Dysfunctional Family, Gang Violence, Gun Violence, Not Canon Compliant, Swearing, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:35:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29435427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alleinimmer/pseuds/alleinimmer
Summary: Desperate to find his brother before Bruce and learn the truth about what happened the night he disappeared, Dick goes looking for Jason on his own...and uncovers a dark secret along the way...
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: Silent Night [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2162160
Comments: 11
Kudos: 70





	1. November 10th, 7:32 AM

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! If you haven't read Part 1: The Sounds of Someday, I strongly recommend you do, otherwise I think you're gonna be really confused.

If Dick had any chance of finding Jason before Bruce did (and those odds were hardly in his favor), he knew he first needed to understand why Jason had finally returned to Gotham after all this time and after everything that happened the last time he was here. 

The thing was, though, Dick wasn't even entirely sure why Jason had done what he'd done two years ago, or even what exactly happened after Bruce had gone after him alone. Bruce never told him what happened after he got back. 

Dick could still remember that night as though it were just yesterday. He'd found Bruce in his room, still dressed in his suit and cape, eerily still and cradling his head in his hands. Dick had approached him warily. 

"Bruce?" He had asked softly. "What happened?" 

Bruce started as though waking from a dream, and then slowly raised his head, looking more tired and defeated than Dick could remember him looking in a long time, staring up at Dick with vacant, hopeless eyes. 

"It's over." Was all he'd said, and Dick hesitated at that, unsure what Bruce meant and even less sure he wanted to find out. 

"Who was he?" Dick had asked instead. Because that had been the question, hadn't it? Who was it that could have brought Gotham to its knees so easily? Who could possibly have gone toe-to-toe with Bruce and come so close to winning? 

"It was Jason, Dick." 

The silence that followed was overwhelming. For a moment, Dick could only stand there, unmoving, trying and failing to convince himself that he'd simply misheard what Bruce had said. 

"...What?" He'd eventually asked. 

"It was Jason." Bruce repeated. "Jason was the Red Hood." 

"Bruce." Dick said, gently but firmly, trying to ignore the thrill of terror that raced through his veins, the thought that maybe this time Bruce had finally, really lost it. "Jason's dead." 

"It was him, Dick." Bruce had snarled. "I saw him. I spoke with him." 

"But, Bruce...how?" Dick protested, staring at him. "I-I saw his body. Leslie, she...We buried him. Years ago. How could he be back?" 

Bruce didn't answer him that time. He simply turned away, watching the approaching dawn. Dick had waited, but it was obvious that Bruce wasn't going to speak again.

"So what happened?" He tried next. "Where is he?" 

"...He's gone, Dick." 

Dick's breath seemed to catch in his throat, and he choked on the air that seemed suddenly too cold and too empty to breathe. 

"W-What does that mean? What do you mean, 'gone'?" Dick had asked, barely managing to get the words out and taking a single step toward Bruce, who still wasn't looking at him. "Bruce!" 

But Bruce only heaved a sigh in response, and Dick had known then that he would never really know what had happened that night between them. He had just turned to leave, eyes burning and legs shaking, when Bruce suddenly called out to him. 

"Dick." He'd said, and when Dick looked back at him, he'd been shocked to see that Bruce was crying, a single tear shining in the early morning blaze. "Don't go looking for what's not there." 

"...Okay." Dick had agreed faintly. He didn't understand what Bruce was talking about, or even what exactly he was agreeing to, but he was too tired and heartbroken, too afraid, to ask. 

Even after he'd returned to work and learned the Red Hood's body had never been recovered, Dick kept his promise. He didn't go looking for Jason, despite how badly he wanted to. He knew his brother was still alive somewhere, but just where Jason had vanished and what he had been doing all this time, God only (and probably Bruce) knew. And neither one, in Dick's experience, were likely to answer him if he asked. 

He had thought so many times about trying to find Jason on his own. It would have been hard, and Dick wasn't entirely sure he'd be able to, but he thought about it all the time. And every time he did, Bruce's words came back to haunt him. 'Don't go looking for what's not there'. Though Dick still didn't know what those words meant, there was something about them that terrified him deeply, something about them that convinced him Bruce knew something he didn't. So he learned to ignore those thoughts. He learned to ignore the pain of not knowing, of living without answers. 

But he couldn't ignore it anymore. Not now. Not after all this time. Not when Jason had finally come back. 

But why had he come back? And why now? Was he planning another takeover of Crime Alley? Of Gotham? Another war against the Bats? It didn't seem like it - so far, it looked like Jay was going out of his way to avoid them. Considering what he'd done the last time, if another fight was on the horizon, if Jason was planning on launching another surprise attack against them, then why would he expose himself over someone like Jose Desoto, only to slip quietly back into the shadows without a trace? And for that matter, why kill a small-time drug dealer like Desoto at all? Dick knew Jason had no problem with killing people, especially people he felt deserved it, but he doubted Jason would have killed the man on a whim, when he knew it would risk drawing Bruce's attention. 

No. 

Something was going on here, something big. Something that was enough to draw Jason back to Gotham, and something that was enough to drive him to murder Desoto. He knew it. But just exactly what it was, Dick had no idea. 

So while it wasn't much, Jose Desoto was, unfortunately, the only thing Dick had to go on. And if he had any hope of understanding just what the hell was going on, the best place (and perhaps the only place) to start looking was the GCPD records database. 

Between everything Bruce and Babs had taught him over the years, and everything he already knew from his job with the GCPD, hacking the server and finding Desoto's file was a cinch. But as Dick read through the digitized reports, it slowly began to dawn on him that whatever was going on was a lot more complicated than he ever could have imagined.

It turned out Desoto was an American citizen, born in El Paso to a prostitute who had entered the country illegally a few years before his birth, and who, in an effort to evade an outstanding arrest warrant, had taken her American son and fled back to Mexico, where Desoto had grown up. He crossed back over again in 2003, slowly making his way north to Gotham, where he'd been operating as a black tar dealer ever since. 

And if the black tar trade was unlike anything the world had ever seen before, Desoto was a black tar dealer unlike any Dick had ever encountered before. Most black tar dealers were quiet, careful. They drove around in beat up, used cars and obeyed traffic laws like grandmothers. They sold drugs but they were terrified of them - they never smoked, snorted, or shot up. They didn't even drink. And they never, ever carried guns. Instead, they preferred to fly under the radar and cooperate with one another rather than risk attracting police and media attention, which made them almost impossible to catch. 

Desoto, however, apparently didn't get that memo. 

The first time Desoto crossed paths with the GCPD was ten years ago, for possession of black tar heroin. But, because he had been carrying such a small amount at the time, as black tar dealers often did, and because Gotham had recently passed a new law to try to reduce prison overcrowding, the heroin had been confiscated and he'd be let off with a warning. The second time was a few weeks later for the same offense, and like the first time, Desoto was released just as quickly as he'd been before, but this time he'd had to pay a fine. 

The third time was after Desoto crashed into a squad car, high on cocaine and with several pounds of heroin in his trunk. 

Unable to look the other way this time, the GCPD had charged Desoto with possession, driving under the influence, and destruction of government property. He was sentenced to ten years at Blackgate prison...only to be released a year later for "good behavior". Whether that meant Desoto had bought his freedom or the court had simply decided that they didn't want to waste their limited resources on a first-time, small-time offender like Desoto, Dick wasn't sure.

In the years that followed, Desoto continued collecting drug related charges...and a few others along the way. He flitted in and out of prison and was always released insultingly early for one reason or another. It seemed that, despite the fact they knew about Desoto and what he was doing, the GCPD and the courts considered him more of a nuisance than an actual threat, and never paid him more attention than they had to. And it may have continued like that for another ten years, if Vince Schreiner hadn't joined the narcotics division and made it his personal mission to bring down the black tar trade and put Desoto away for good. 

He'd come close too. During his time with the narcs, Schreiner had gathered more than enough evidence that proved Desoto's unusual connection with the cartel and the danger he posed to Gotham - enough to make it a federal case. 

But right as Schreiner was preparing to bring what he'd found to the DEA, Desoto disappeared. Where exactly, no one knew for sure, but it was strongly suspected he had fled to Juarez. It was, after all, not only the city where Desoto had grown up, but also the city ruled by a powerful cartel who controlled the heroin trade. Though Schreiner must have known that if Desoto had gone to Juarez, he had no hope of finding him, much less arresting him, he tried. And he may have actually managed to pull it off, if he wasn't suddenly promoted to homicide. 

Jose Desoto was never charged with anything else again, after that. As Dick quickly checked back over the dates, wondering if he missed something, he was surprised to see that Desoto's last official charge was the same year Jason had first returned to Gotham. Dick felt his heart stutter at that, thinking he had finally found the connection between the two, but was disappointed when he realized that Desoto would have left Gotham for Juarez shortly before Jason had arrived. So if there was no hope of the two having crossed paths at that time, when had they? How did Jason know Desoto?

Dick sighed, frustrated. Another dead end, it seemed. He glanced back over Desoto's record, his gaze lingering over the date of that final charge. Why had Desoto never been charged with anything else again after that? He had clearly come back from Juarez at some point, and as far as Dick could tell from what Anthony told him, he had still been slinging black tar up until the night he'd died. So why had he never been caught again? Dick doubted it was because Desoto had finally realized how much more successful his operation would be if he exercised even just a hint of subtlety and stopped getting himself arrested. So what was it then? Was it simply that, after watching Schreiner work so hard for so long trying to bring Desoto down, only for it to amount to absolutely nothing, the narcotics division had just given up? Or maybe that once they knew just how involved Desoto was with the cartel, they were too afraid to try and go after him again? 

No. Anthony had said the GCPD was involved with Desoto. So then...

...Had someone in the GCPD given an order to leave Desoto alone? 

It had happened before. There had been plenty of dirty cops over the years who had cut deals with the mafia and dealers in exchange for money, or power, or even information. If that were the case, the real question wasn't why, but who? 

Dick found his thoughts drifting vaguely back to Schreiner. He'd pursued Desoto relentlessly for three years, had come so close to finally putting him away for good, and in an instant, it was over. Dick bit his lip. Schreiner had been promoted not long after Desoto had escaped to Mexico...which in and of itself was a hell of a coincidence. And in his experience, coincidences didn't exist in the GCPD. Still. Dick didn't think Schreiner was the type who would have agreed to let Desoto go in exchange for a promotion. It didn't seem like him. 

But someone else, maybe. Someone who stood to lose so much if Desoto went down. Someone who would have been aware of what was going on in GCPD, someone who knew Schreiner was closing in, and someone who would have been able to manipulate Schreiner's advancement to the homicide unit at just the right moment...

Dick sat back and rubbed his aching eyes. He really, really didn't like where this seemed to be going. The cartel involvement was one thing, but the possibility of a corruption scandal was quite another. And if it were true, if the two were somehow entwined, whether knowingly or not, how was he supposed to prove it, let alone stop it? He sighed, eyeing his computer reluctantly. There was still one report left in Desoto's file he needed to read, and after everything he'd seen so far, he wasn't sure he wanted to. But he knew that if he had any any hope of understanding what was going on, of findings Jason, he needed to know as much as he possibly could about this case. So he stretched, popping his shoulders, and then leaned forward again, opening the file.

It was a copy of a Missing Persons report that had been filed last year for a twelve year old girl named April Downing. 

According to the document, April was reported missing by her foster mother, and was last seen leaving school that same day. But somewhere between there and her house, she had vanished. The officer who had taken the foster mother's statement had been thorough - interviews with neighbors, April's teacher, her friends, the route she took from home to school and back, and a list of April's interests and hobbies were all included in his summary. Reading over these notes, Dick couldn't help but be impressed. Usually in such a case, especially a case involving a Crime Alley foster kid, responding officers didn't put nearly a tenth of such effort into the investigation. Curious, Dick scrolled to the bottom of the page, and when he found the officer's name, it gave him pause. 

Nick Walden. He knew that name...why did he know that name? He knew he'd heard it before. But for the life of him he couldn't remember where. Dick tapped his fingers impatiently on the table, glaring down at the pixelated image, as though he could intimidate it into reminding him how he knew this guy, but after a few frustratingly blank moments passed, he returned to the rest of Walden's report. 

According to both April's friends and foster mother, she often stopped at the local library on her way home from school. Walden had followed the tip and managed to confirm that April had been there the day she disappeared, and had attached a series of pictures taken from the library's security cameras. There was one of April entering the library. A couple of her browsing the bookshelves, one of her standing at the check out desk. And one more of her leaving the building. Dick studied the image. You could clearly see the back of April's blonde head as she stepped across the street...but what was more, and what Walden had also pointed out in his report, was there was a car following closely behind her - and perhaps the only thing more important than the car was the license plate attached to it. Heart pounding, Dick quickly scrolled to the next page, but he already knew who the car was registered to before he read it for himself: Jose Desoto. 

Dick sat back, stunned. So Anthony was right - Desoto had been involved, somehow, with at least one missing kid from the Narrows. How many others were there, ones he hadn't been connected to? Kids who hadn't been reported missing or had been written off as runaways? Dick's eyes flickered over Walden's conclusion, his naming Desoto as the official suspect involved with April's disappearance, and his plans to put out a warrant for Desoto's arrest. 

But Desoto's file ended there. There was no copy of the warrant Walden had planned on getting. No record of Desoto being brought in for questioning, no conviction for kidnapping (or worse). What had happened? Why hadn't Walden gotten the warrant? Why hadn't he followed up on the case? It was obvious that Walden was a damn good cop, and clearly dedicated to finding April, so why hadn't-

And then it hit him. He remembered how he knew Nick Walden. 

Walden had been the rookie cop who had gotten shot on the job, trying to stop a gas station robbery. From what Dick remembered, Walden had taken multiple bullets to the face and head, leaving him partially paralyzed, blind in one eye, and unable to speak...

...All within a few days after his report had been filed...

Dick wasn't sure how long he sat there, staring at Walden's signature. It had to be a coincidence, right? These kinds of things didn't just happen, not even in a place like Gotham. He couldn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it. 

And yet, as much as he didn't want to believe it, he knew there was no denying it. 

Nick Walden had obviously come too close to discovering something he shouldn't have, something bigger than Jose Desoto and his little black tar drug trade, and somebody had somehow intervened to stop Walden from finding out the truth. And the only person who could have done that was someone who would have known what Walden had discovered. Someone who would have had access to his report. 

Someone in the GCPD...

Dick slammed his laptop shut, his heart pounding. This was bad. This was really, really bad. This was obviously so much more than just some small time drug dealer getting gunned down in a back alley. Whatever this was, it was something the GCPD was involved in, and they were clearly willing to kill for it. 

But just what exactly was it that they were involved in? What did the kid have to do with it? 

And where did Jason fit into all of this? 

Dick heaved a shaky breath, burying his face in his hands. He was in over his head with this - this was something so much bigger than anything Dick could possibly take on on his own and actually win. He didn't even know exactly what it was he was up against, but he knew that if he screwed this up, a lot of people were going to get hurt, including Jason. And he'd have nobody to blame but himself if that happened. For a moment, he considered coming clean to Bruce about everything. Because Bruce would know what to do. Because if anybody could beat this, it was Bruce. 

But childish pride won out in the end, and Dick decided to wait and try to uncover a little more before going to Bruce. He knew he would eventually have to, but he didn't want to just yet. Not until he at least tried. Until he knew he'd given it his all. 

And besides...

There was one advantage Dick still had that Bruce didn't. An advantage Bruce didn't even know existed...

\----------

Marco Alvarado-Cortez was a small time scumbag who had been in and out of jail almost his whole life for one petty crime or another. But apparently, out of everything he'd done, the worst had been hooking up with Anthony's aunt, because the boy had rattled off his address without Dick even having to ask him to when they parted ways. 

"You want to know anything else about Jose, you're gonna have to ask Marco." The boy had told him with a scowl. "He works as a mechanic at that car shop off 42nd street. And when he's not moochin' off my aunt, he's usually cheating on her with some girl who lives in the projects. He tells her he works late on Thursdays, but we all know that's where he really is." 

Dick had debated briefly whether he wanted to corner Marco at his job as Officer Dick Grayson, or catch him off guard as he was coming home to his mistress as Nightwing, but in the end, it really wasn't much of a debate. Dick knew all too well how the people of the Narrows felt about cops, and he could only imagine how well it would go over if he showed up at a Bowery car shop in the middle of the afternoon flashing his badge and demanding answers. 

Which was precisely how Dick found himself camped outside a crumbling apartment building later that night, breathing air that reeked with the smell of piss and weed and listening to the faint chittering of rats as they scurried down the garbage strewn street. Dick sighed, trying to get comfortable against the cold brick as he looked down across the strangely empty, quiet streets. He'd patrolled this part of the Narrows before, but he always hated coming here, to this miserable place the politicians only pretended to care about at election time and a place that, no matter how many thousands of dollars the Wayne Foundation poured into it, seemed to exist in a state of eternal rot. Dick leaned back, closing his eyes. This, like so many other things in this godforsaken town, was just another reminder that no matter how hard they tried, there were just some things they couldn't save. That there were people they had failed...

He craned his neck, gazing up at the heavy clouds that dotted the Gotham night sky. Jason had grown up not too far from here, and he knew better than any of them the hell of living in a place like this. Every time Dick thought about it, about everything Jason must have gone through before Bruce found him, of everything he might still be going through, it made his stomach turn. Not for the first time since he'd discovered Jason was back, he found himself wondering where his brother was now, and what he was doing. If he was okay. If he missed them the way they missed him. Dick doubted it, considering the lengths he'd gone to avoid them, but still, he couldn't help but wonder just how Jason planned on doing this alone (because that's what he was clearly planning on doing). 

Then again, Jason had been more or less on his own his whole life, and if there was anyone Dick believed could actually pull something like this off (whatever this was), it was Jay. 

He just hoped it wouldn't have to come to that. 

A car door slammed below him, and Dick looked down to see a heavy-set Hispanic man slowly ambling his way across the street, the sleeves of his stained and greasy jumpsuit rolled up to reveal a set of heavily tattooed arms. Dick watched silently as he crossed the street, whistling tunelessly to himself. He waited until Marco was at the door before he dropped silently from his perch.

"Marco Alvarado-Cortez?" 

With a small cry of alarm, Marco whipped around faster than Dick had thought possible for a man his size, and Dick found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. He froze, eyes flickering to meet Marco's, who stood just as still and rooted to the spot, staring up at Dick in shock. 

"Holy-" He breathed. Dick cocked an eyebrow at him. 

"You expecting someone?" Dick asked, and his words seemed to snap Marco out of his stupor. "Or are you always this jumpy?" 

"Hey, man," He said with a smirk, lowering the gun just slightly. "You know how it is. You can never be too careful in these parts."

"Yeah, I'll bet." Dick answered, watching him closely. "Especially if you're involved with someone like Jose Desoto, right?" 

For a second, Marco's mask of disdain dropped, and he looked at Dick, fear written plainly on his face, before he quickly schooled his features again. 

"Who?" He said with a scoff that sounded forced. "That name supposed to mean something to me?" 

"It should." Dick said easily. "Considering I heard you and him were business partners and that you were one of the last people who saw him alive." 

If Marco was surprised, he hid it better this time. 

"People talk." He grunted with a shrug. "Don't mean a damn thing. I don't know nobody named Jose Desoto, so how about you move along-" His raised the gun again. "-before this gets ugly?" 

"Your parole officer know you have that?" Dick asked him coolly. 

"Just what the hell are you gonna do about it if he doesn't, pretty boy?" Marco sneered back. 

"Me? Not a thing." Dick told him airily, turning away. "Trust me, Marco, I've got way bigger problems than you tonight. And besides. I'm the last person you need to be worried about right now." 

"The hell's that supposed to mean?" Marco growled after him.

"Oh." Dick called over his shoulder. "Haven't you heard? Jose Desoto's killer is still out there. Rumor has it he's coming after everyone who was involved with Desoto and the black tar trade. But if you don't know anything about that, then I guess you don't have anything to worry about." He glared at Marco. "Right?" 

Marco shifted slightly, his beady eyes darting nervously back and forth as he studied Dick, considering his options. "Look, suppose I...okay, I knew about Jose, alright? And...and what he was involved with." He said hesitatingly. "But it wasn't like I was actually a part of anything!" 

"Oh, I don't think he'll see it that way." Dick informed him coolly. 

"Who?" 

"The Red Hood." 

Marco looked shocked for a moment, and then his expression faltered, and he laughed. 

"Please." He chuckled. "The Red Hood's dead. Everyone knows that." 

"The Red Hood was the one who killed Jose Desoto last night. The GCPD have an eyewitness who saw the whole thing." Dick told him, watching with some small satisfaction as Marco blanched at these words. "And we know that he's targeting everyone who was involved in Desoto's little black tar trade. And since the GCPD's witness says you were his right-hand man-"

"Wait, hold up! I didn't have nothing to do with any of that!" Marco protested, lowering the gun completely and taking a quick, pleading step toward Dick, who watched him coldly. 

"Except I'm not really the one you need to convince, am I, Marco?" Dick shot back, letting those words sink in before he continued. "The Red Hood's coming for you. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, but he is coming, and I promise, when he finds you, he won't be interested in talking. You really think you have a chance against him? You think that pistol's gonna be enough to stop him?" 

Marco sputtered at that, but Dick ignored him, taking several quick steps closer until he was towering over him, their faces only a few uncomfortable inches apart. "See, the thing is," Dick hissed, "There's only one person who can probably stop the Red Hood. But he can't do that if he doesn't even know just what the hell's going on." He glared pointedly at Marco. "So talk. Who was Jose working for?" 

"I really don't know anything, I swear!" Marco wailed. "Jose never told me nothing, man, he just gave me the bags to sell on the side!"

"Then what happened the night Jose was killed?" Dick challenged. "I know you met Jose that night and I know he was pissed. But unfortunately, you and the Red Hood are the only ones who know why." 

"I don't know!" Marco insisted. "He just showed up at my girlfriend's place screaming like a crazy person! He wasn't making any sense! He kept saying that something had happened and that everything was gone!"

"What happened? What was gone?" Dick pushed, taking a step closer to Marco, who cowered back. "What did that mean?" 

"I thought he was talking about the drugs!" Marco said. "Look, I don't know who he works for, but I know the drugs come from Juarez. You've seen the news, right? You saw what happened there? Those explosions wiped out the entire year's supply of heroin! You follow me? All of it, it's gone!" 

Dick stared at him. "You're telling me that the cartel lost an entire year's worth of heroin...millions and millions of dollars...in those explosions?" 

"Yes!" Marco said, nodding vigorously. "They're all freaking out about it!" 

"But that was...what, on Halloween? Or Day of the Dead? Why was Jose freaking out about it almost a week later?" 

"Because! They had it stored all over the city! And a lot of their men were hurt or killed in the attack - it took them a couple days to realize they'd lost it all!" 

Dick was quiet, turning this new bit of information over and over in his head. "That's really all he meant?" He murmured, more to himself than Marco. "He was just talking about the drugs?" 

He wasn't sure why he was so disappointed, what exactly he had been expecting to hear, but a part of him had been so sure that there was more to it than that... 

"I guess so." Marco said with a shrug, apparently thinking Dick was still talking to him. "Whole thing's fucked. That's why the Boss called a meeting with the black tar dealers - to figure out they're gonna do next."

Dick glanced over at him sharply. "Meeting?" He repeated, puzzled. "I thought the black tar dealers worked alone - that they're not a part of any official operation." 

"Oh, for the most part they're not." Marco assured him quickly. "Yeah, anywhere else, the black tar dealers just buy the heroin directly from the supplier and then make a profit off what they sell. They're completely on their own. But it's different with Gotham. The cartel makes a lot of money from this city. No way in hell are they gonna let that go." 

"So the Gotham dealers are taking orders from the Cartel." Dick summarized, still feeling like he was missing something. "And the head of the Cartel is coming all the way here just to have a meeting with them?" 

Marco blinked. "What? No, not the head of the Cartel."

"You just said 'the Boss'-"

"Yeah, the guy who's in charge here - in Gotham! The guy who's been organizing the black tar trade here and the guy who coordinates with Juarez." 

Dick stared at him, hardly daring to believe what he was hearing was true. 

"When was this meeting supposed to happen?" He asked at last. 

"Tonight. Midnight, I think is what Jose said." 

"Where?" 

"The Harbor House. You know, that fancy, old restaurant down by the docks-hey! Hey, where you going?" 

"Where do you think?" Dick snapped over his shoulder, striding back toward the street, where he'd stashed his motorcycle. 

"Wait, you can't just leave me here!" Marco protested, huffing loudly as he scrambled after Dick. "What if the Red Hood shows up?" 

"Trust me, he won't." 

"But how do you know?!" Marco pleaded, grabbing Dick's arm. "How do you know he's not gonna come after me?" 

"He's not coming after you, he's going after the Boss!" Dick told him impatiently, wrenching himself free. "Don't you get it?! That's what this is all about - if he can bring the Boss down, he can bring the whole thing down!"


	2. November 10, 11:43 PM

The moon hung high and bright in the clear night sky, shining like a beacon and bathing the Harbor House in a cold, silver light. Gleaming in the moonlight, it was easy to ignore the crumbling, tattooed façade and to convince yourself that the Harbor House had never changed - that it was still as beautiful and whole as it had been the day it was unveiled, so many years ago. 

What had once been a grand and opulent meeting place of the city's rich and powerful, the Harbor House was now a pale shadow of its former self, disregarded and abandoned long before Dick could remember it being any other way. He had seen pictures of Bruce's grandparents there, attending the governor's ball back in the 1940's - there had been enormous crystal chandeliers hanging overhead, important men dressed in expensive, well-cut suits and accompanied by beautiful women dripping in diamonds. Waiters in tuxedos darted about like hummingbirds, and in the background, you could see part of the string quartet that had serenaded them well into the night. 

But like all good things in Gotham, it had slowly been corrupted over the years, rotting from the inside out until it was nothing more than a distant, half-forgotten memory. Its fall from grace began when it was purchased by the Maroni crime family in the late '60's, who used it not only as a way to launder money, but as a meeting house of their own - no longer was the Harbor House a refuge for the Gotham elite, but a gilded palace of criminals, a gambling hall where assassins poured drinks and ladies snorted coke from diamond encrusted compacts and politicians quietly exchanged favors for money, a black market posing as a white one. 

Over the years, the exclusive Harbor House standards continued to plummet, until the only ones left who still felt comfortable coming around were the openly criminal. And when it eventually stopped generating the money it once had, the Maronis lost interest in it altogether. Since then, the Harbor House had played host to any and all manner of illegal activity before it was officially shut down. 

As Dick slinked across the rooftop, ducking between shadows, he scanned for any signs of movement down below, but it seemed the place was completely and utterly deserted. 

He didn't like it. There was always someone skulking around the Harbor House - even after it had been foreclosed and a chain link fence had been erected around the perimeter, you could usually find a junkie or two holed up inside, or a group of nervy high-schoolers sneaking in on a dare. Even the security guard that occasionally showed up to chase them away was missing. To find it so eerily quiet since he'd gotten there, with only the sound of the water lapping at the pier and the distant sound of traffic to keep him company as he cased the old restaurant, was starting to make him nervous. Clearly, something was going down tonight. 

As he circled back toward the front of the building, Dick suddenly caught sight of headlights coming around the bend. He leapt silently from the roof down to the second story terrace, crouching behind the low wall of the balcony, and watching as half a dozen cars came cruising, single-file, down the road to the Harbor House, where the engines were abruptly shut off. Dick eyed the figures that unfolded from the cars and strolled casually across the lot, but he didn't recognize any of them. Only when they disappeared from sight and he heard the high-pitched squeal of rusted hinges did he dare to move, slipping to one of the busted windows and peering down into the darkness below. 

He could hear faint whispers, and what sounded like something heavy and metallic being dragged across the floor. After a few fumbling moments, crackling flames erupted from what appeared to be an old oil drum, and Dick watched as the men shuffled closer to the fire, warming their hands. They didn't speak, and Dick couldn't make out anything specific about any of them by the flickering light, but he knew they were Desoto's crew, the men at the heart of the black tar trade. He shifted impatiently, itching to get closer, but as he glanced around the inside of the Harbor House, he realized there was nowhere inside where he could perch or hide, and even fewer places he could use as an anchor for his grappling gun. Not to mention, the dealers below were being so quiet, Dick wouldn't be able to even move without tipping them off that he was here. 

His only option was to sit and wait for an opening...

The minutes dragged agonizingly by. Somewhere in the night, Dick heard the Clocktower strike midnight, but if the sound meant anything to the circle of men, they didn't show it. Dick shifted his weight from one foot to the other - he had been crouching there for so long that the muscles in his legs were beginning to ache, and the frigid air definitely wasn't helping. How much longer would he have to stay here before something finally happened? What the hell were they doing just standing around down there? Just what, or who, were they waiting for? 

Until tonight, Dick had always believed the black tar business was different from the other drug trades. He knew that there was some level of organization to it, that there was a team of people who worked loosely together to make a profit, but he also knew it was nowhere near the rigid hierarchy that defined the cocaine and marijuana markets. With black tar, there was no one who was actually in charge, no one the dealers really answered to, no one who oversaw the operation and no elaborate collaboration between the different people who were involved...perhaps most importantly of all though, there was no real connection with the cartel. To see the dealers gathered around before him, knowing that they had been called here for a meeting by their Boss to discuss the future of their business - learning that apparently there was someone in Gotham who was in charge of the whole thing -was mind-boggling to him. 

After all, Dick had heard stories over the years of what it was like down on the front lines of the Mexican-American border towns - he knew the cartels waged open, violent warfare against each other with little regard for innocent civilians caught in the crossfire and even less regard for whether or not that violence spilled over onto American soil. He knew the Mexican police were on the cartel payroll, that they often assisted with assassinations and cover-ups. That they did nothing when women went missing, their naked and mutilated bodies found days later on the sides of the roads. He knew about the child soldiers the cartels recruited and trained, promising them money and power, and that most of those children were gunned down in broad daylight by rival gangs before they even had the chance to see that so-called 'glory' for themselves. He knew the people lived in fear, pinned under the cartel's iron thumb, that there wasn't a single thing the cartel didn't control. That there was no one who seemed able, much less willing, to try and stop them. 

And maybe worst of all, he also knew about Americans who sold the cartels the cars, the guns, the explosives, and bulletproof vests that were used to carry out those awful crimes - that there were American citizens who had betrayed their own and who allowed such evil not only to continue, but to flourish.

But Dick had never given it too much thought before now. It was so easy to distance himself from the crisis at the border when it was so far away, when Gotham had more than enough of its own tragedies to keep him preoccupied. Now that it was here, Dick found he couldn't stop thinking about it. 

In fact, he had been so lost in thought, absently watching the dealers as they shifted and fidgeted around the fire that he completely missed the arrival of the group's final member. The silence that had fallen over the Harbor House was so heavy and absolute that when a car door was suddenly slammed shut, the sound seemed to echo a thousand fold into the night, and Dick couldn't help but jump. He waited, listening to the soft crunch of gravel that gradually gave way to the low groan of rotted wood as the last person - no doubt the boss - strode across the front deck and threw open the door. 

Dick squinted - he had positioned himself in front of a large window that faced the entrance, hoping it would be a good vantage point, but with the the bright white light of the moon shining behind him, it was hard to make out the shadowy silhouette standing in the doorway. He watched as the figure turned to a second, taller one that was close behind him. 

"Wait here." A cold voice commanded. "If you see anyone coming, shoot them." 

The second shadow nodded, and then disappeared from sight, no doubt to patrol the area. The dark figure then eased the door closed behind him, and another protesting shriek filled the air as he did. The man didn't seem the least bit bothered by the sound, damn near strolling closer to the little group of men gathered around the burning oil drum, seemingly without a care in the world. He stopped a few feet from the others, who eyed him warily. 

"This everybody?" He asked, and a few nods and murmurs of assent followed. The man seemed to nod to himself. "Well." He said with a sigh. "Not exactly what I had in mind." 

"Excuse me, Mr. Mahoney?" One of the black tar dealers spoke up suddenly, the words halting and heavily accented. "Where is the Boss?"

The man - Mahoney- turned his head slowly toward him, and he seemed to cower away. 

"Boss couldn't make it tonight." He answered simply. "He's a very busy man, as I'm sure you are aware. So I'm afraid you're stuck with just me. Is that gonna be a problem for you?" 

The others quickly shook their heads, and one of them cleared his throat nervously. "So." He stammered, his English better than his friend's. "What happens now?" 

"We move forward as planned." Mahoney informed him as though it were obvious.

"But they're saying the Red Hood's involved-!" 

"If you wanna keep breathing then you won't dare mention that name again in my presence." Mahoney snarled, fairly spitting with rage. 

"But, Sir!" The dealer persisted. "What are we supposed to do?! You saw what he did in Juarez - if he comes after us, we're dead!" 

"Let him come." Mahoney scoffed. "It won't be like last time - this time, we'll be ready for him. And after what he did to us? Believe me," He growled lowly, "I'm gonna kill the bastard myself or die trying!" 

It seemed to Dick that the black tar dealers didn't have much faith in this promise, most of them shifting nervously at his words, but they wisely kept these opinions to themselves. 

"...But Mr. Mahoney," Another dealer began carefully. "What about the supply? What's the point of continuing if we don't even have anything to move?"

"The point is that we are building an empire," Mahoney said. "One that will be able to withstand anything that happens in the years to come. And the only way that's gonna happen is if we take this time and make sure it's done right. We've only got one year, gentlemen - we need to be ready to strike hard and fast as soon as we can."

"The other cartels aren't just gonna let an opportunity like this go to waste." A third dealer argued. "They know we're weak, and they've been trying to take control of Juarez for years. We need to be defending our territory, not-"

"We're weren't the only ones who lost everything in that attack." Mahoney was quick to remind him. "No one is gonna make a move against us now - they can't." 

The dealers were quiet for a moment, considering this. 

"When do you want us to start?" The second dealer eventually asked. 

"The Boss is supposed to meet with the Czar soon to discuss what's gonna happen next." Mahoney said. Dick blinked, leaning closer. Had he heard that right? The Czar? Who was that? "Once the Czar gives the go-ahead, we'll start giving you names." 

"And what are we supposed to do then? Jose was the one-" 

"Jose was a loose cannon." Mahoney, said firmly, his tone brooking no room for argument. "Who could barely do the one job he had and got himself caught more times than any of us could count. It hardly takes a genius to do what he did, and as far as I'm concerned, we're better off without him." 

The dealers didn't seem to like this answer much either, standing there in stony silence and carefully avoiding each others' eyes, but again, no one dared to say otherwise. 

"When's the Czar supposed to get here?" One asked instead. 

"Don't you know?" He's already here." Mahoney said airily, and a faint ripple of excitement seemed to move through the group. 

"And what should we do until he and the Boss meet?"

"What you've been doing. Keep slingin' tar."

Suddenly, the front door was thrown open again, and another long shadow stretched across the ground. Dick stiffened nervously. Was it the guard from before? Was something wrong?

Did he know Dick was here?

Mahoney glanced over his shoulder, and when he saw the tall figure step inside, he turned around completely. 

"Hey." He snapped. "I thought I told you to wait outside -" 

"Change of plans." 

The voice was deep and artificially warped, as though the person speaking was using some kind of modulator. What happened next was so fast and so unexpected that it took Dick several long seconds to realize just what exactly had happened. 

The newcomer had been striding quickly toward the others when, without any kind of warning, he raised his right hand and fired a single shot at Mahoney. The sound was like an explosion in the still night, shattering whatever illusion of peace there had been instantly. Mahoney let loose a bloodcurdling howl and collapsed to the ground, clutching his leg and writhing in pain. The dealers began shouting fearfully, their voices echoing across the vaulted ceiling as they scrambled away from the shooter, who continued to advance calmly forward. One of them even managed to upend the oil drum, spilling the kerosene inside across the floor, and the flames trailing along the serpentine tendrils. 

Dick quickly grabbed his grappling gun and fired it into the rafters, leaping down into the flames. When he landed, no one so much as blinked at his sudden appearance, the black tar dealers running helter skelter for the closest exit, while Mahoney lay panting with his face in the dirt-covered floor, and the ground beneath his leg soaked in blood. The shooter stood with his back to Dick, gun still trained on the pathetic heap before him. 

"Hood!" Dick shouted about the roaring flames. 

The figure stiffened and spared Dick a single glance over his shoulder. He was dressed in black Kevlar armor and a simple leather jacket, and on his face he wore the same red helmet he'd worn two years before, the eyes glowing ominously in the firelight. 

"Oh. Hey." He said. "Long time no see. Dick." 

For a brief moment, Dick couldn't move, pinned beneath that eerie stare, beneath the knowledge that behind that mask was the man who had once been his little brother, but he recovered himself quickly. 

"Hood, you need to listen to me - put the gun down!" Dick commanded him urgently, his heart hammering painfully against his ribs as he took a few careful steps closer.

"Yeah, sure thing," Jason said casually, turning away from him and back to Mahoney, "Just as soon as I finish redecorating the place with this asshole's blood and guts." 

"No, don't!" Dick shouted, lunging forward. 

Jason pulled a second pistol from the holster on his thigh, and he swung his left arm around, aiming it straight at Dick, who froze instantly. 

"Don't make me shoot you, Dick." Jason said, his voice deadly calm and soft, and from the way he said it, Dick knew then that Jason meant it - that he wouldn't hesitate to shoot him if he took so much as a single step closer. 

Dick grit his teeth. Jason was going to kill Mahoney as soon as he had whatever information he needed from him, Dick was sure of it. Dick needed to make sure that didn't happen - he had to save Mahoney before Jason had the chance to pull the trigger...but how was he supposed to do that when Jason clearly had no problem shooting - maybe even killing - him too? The two brothers stared at one another for what felt like an eternity, and then Jason slowly turned back to Mahoney. 

"Where's your Boss?" He asked. 

"Go to hell," Mahoney snarled, "You son of a-"  
"Hey. Mahoney. Last I checked, you were the one who had a gun to your head - answer the question!" 

"I'd rather die!" Mahoney spat. 

"That can be arranged." Jason told him, leveling his gun. 

"Jay, no!" Dick cried out.

"Quiet, Big Bird." Jason said, eyes still fixed on Mahoney. "I'm gonna ask you one more time: where's your Boss?"

Mahoney chuckled mirthlessly, shaking his head. "Not here." He panted. 

"I can see that, you dumb fuck." Jason told him, and Dick could practically hear him rolling his eyes. "So how about you tell me something I don't know and I won't shoot you in the kneecaps." 

"Please." Mahoney sneered. "You're not gonna let me walk out of here alive. Why should I tell you anything?"

"You have a bullet in your leg, dumbass, you aren't walking out of here not matter what happens." Jason reminded him. "Might as well make it easier on yourself and tell me what I want to know." 

But Mahoney only laughed again. "You're out of your league, kid." He said with a sigh, as though he truly pitied Jason. "You have no idea what you're up against." 

"Gosh." Jason drawled through his teeth. "If only there was someone who could help me out with that." 

"Ha! You really think I'd sell him out? To you?" Mahoney snarled. "After everything you've done?" He raised his head, shaking it with great disgust and glaring up at Jason. "You really are insane."

"There's not a single person here who's arguing otherwise." Jason said coolly, cocking his gun and pointing it carefully at Mahoney's face. "Alright, Captain Obvious. I think it's pretty safe to say you've outlived your usefulness. Anything else you'd like to say, before I, you know, blow your frickin' brains out?" 

"Yeah. This is for Juarez, you son of a bitch!" 

Dick hadn't noticed that Mahoney's hand, the hand that had been clutching his torn and bleeding leg, had been slowly inching down his thigh, away from the bullet hole and toward his ankle. By the time Dick realized what he was doing, Mahoney had already yanked his arm back, his blood-soaked fingers curled around a grenade. The pin slipped from his grasp, falling silently to the ground. 

Jason reacted instantly, before Dick had time to even process what was happening. He tossed the guns aside, whipping around and charging straight for Dick. Right as he tackled him to the ground, the bomb went off. 

Dick's head collided with the ground, and pain exploded across the back of his skull. Stars erupted across his vision - a supernova of blinding white light that immediately began collapsing on itself. He couldn't see, couldn't breathe, he was choking on smoke. There was a high-pitched ringing in his ears that was drowning out all other sound...

And then everything went black. 

\----------

Dick groaned, shifting slightly against the ice cold surface he was spread across. What had happened? Where was he? God, the back of his head was killing him...why did his head hurt so much? He cautiously opened his eyes, only to slam them shut again an instant later when he was met with the sickening swirl of city lights. He swallowed thickly against the bile that was rising in his throat. 

"...Dick?" 

The voice was soft, uncertain, and even though it was one that Dick didn't recognize, there was something about it that felt familiar. Curious, he slowly opened his eyes again, and squinted at the figure that was crouched before him. He was having a hard time focusing - the world had been reduced to smudges of color, but if he blinked a few times the edges seemed to sharpen a bit. Far away, down below the side of the skyscraper he had been propped against, he could just make out great billows of black smoke rising above the flaming carcass of what once had been the Harbor House. The piercing wail of sirens was getting closer, and when Dick turned his head he saw distant, red and blue strobe lights amidst the sea of soft golden light. 

"Dick." The man spoke again, firmer this time, and when Dick rolled his head around, he found the vague, shadowy form before him had solidified, green eyes glaring down at him. Dick gasped slightly, staring up at Jason in wonder, hardly daring to believe that this was real, that he had actually done it, that he had actually found his little brother. 

"Jason." He breathed. "Hey." 

"Hi." Jason said stiffly back. "You okay?"

"Never better." Dick groaned, pushing himself a bit further upright. "Just another Thursday night for us, right?" 

Jason didn't answer, just continued to watch him warily. Dick knew, in some distant, vague kind of way, that he should probably be regarding Jay the same way his brother seemed to be regarding him, but for the life of him, he couldn't. It was so odd - the person sitting before him was more or less a stranger, and a dangerous stranger at that, the same one who had attacked him and his family only two years before and the same one who had just threatened him with a gun.

And, yet, somehow Dick felt as though he was sitting across from an old friend. 

...A friend who looked as though he'd rather be anywhere else than where he was at the moment. 

"Where's the Bat?" Jason asked him next, glancing around, as though he expected Bruce to suddenly materialize from thin air at any moment. Which, in all fairness, was something that was very likely to happen. 

"He's not here." Dick told him, bringing his hand up to brush against the back of his head. His hair was matted and wet. 

"Don't do that." Jason snapped, snatching his hand away. Dick grunted back at him. "Is there anybody out here with you?" 

Dick shook his head, regretting it instantly. "No one knows I'm here." He moaned. 

Jason swore under his breath at that, and then he scrambled back away from Dick, pacing quickly back and forth across the ledge. Dick watched him through slitted eyes. 

Jason had died when he was fifteen. He was...what, twenty now? He looked so different. He was taller, towering over Dick by a good few inches. His hair was shorter than how he'd worn it when he was younger, and crowned with a shock of white that streaked above his forehead. His face was leaner, harder, and his eyes burned with cold fury Dick didn't remember ever seeing before. Dick barely recognized him, he didn't know his voice, and seeing him now, after all this time and after everything that happened, his throat swelled thickly. 

Jason stopped pacing to glare down at Dick. "What?" He snapped. 

Dick gently shook his head, and closed his eyes. "Nothing." He assured him quietly, hoping Jason didn't hear the slight catch of his voice. "Nothing at all." 

Jason didn't press him, and when Dick opened his eyes again, he seemed to be deliberating something. "You're really alone?" He eventually growled, and when Dick nodded, not trusting himself to speak, he then asked. "Does Bats still have those ridiculous trackers in the suits?" 

Dick nodded again, wondering why Jason was asking him that. He felt as though his head was packed tight with water-logged cotton, and the thoughts that trickled through were disjointed and lagging a good ten seconds behind real-time. Maybe that was why he thought nothing of it when Jason stomped back to him, hands poking and prodding impatiently at his armor before he found the emergency tracker in Dick's chest plate and pushed it, glaring at it with disgust. He looked up at Dick. "Okay. They're coming to get you. Just stay here. And for the love of God, I know I'm asking a lot, but don't do anything stupid until they get here." 

It took Dick an embarrassingly long time to realize he was leaving. 

"Wait!" Dick protested, reaching for him. He should have known there was no way in hell Jason was gonna stick around and wait for Bruce to show up, and Dick knew that that was probably for the best - that if he stayed, there was sure to be a fight, and if that happened, then the Harbor House wouldn't be the only thing to go up in flames that night. 

But he also knew that if he let Jay go, he'd probably never see him again. 

Jason looked back at him over his shoulder. 

"Don't you dare come looking for me." He snarled, looking down at Dick with such hatred that he couldn't help but hesitate. Bruce's words came swimming sluggishly back to him.

Don't go looking for what's not there... 

Dick could only watch as Jason fired a grappling gun and disappeared into the night. A moment later it was like he had never been there at all. 

Dick closed his eyes, leaning his aching head back against the wall, and the tears he'd been holding back for so long finally spilled over. 

He had been so close...


	3. November 11, 3:01 AM

"Ow!" Dick yelped, jerking away from the needle as it dove deep into his skin. "Alfred!"

"Apologies, Master Dick." Alfred said primly from behind him, not sounding sorry at all. "I'm afraid my hands just aren't what they used to be anymore." 

Dick grumbled under his breath. Alfred's hands were as sure and steady as they ever were. This was just the old butler's passive-aggressive way of letting Dick know just how 'displeased' he was with Dick's 'poor decisions' and 'reckless endangerment of himself'. But he reluctantly inched himself back on the gurney and allowed Alfred to finish sewing up the enormous gash on the back of his head. 

Across the medbay, Bruce stood with his arms folded, glowering at Dick, who ignored him. 

He had vague memories of Bruce shaking him awake on that rooftop, of the battalion of fire trucks that were gathered at the dizzying depths below and the blinding blaze they were trying to put out. He could remember, in bits and pieces, the nauseating ride back to the Cave, but nothing in particular. The next thing he'd known, he was blinking up at the fluorescent lights of the Cave, and Damian was leaning over him. 

"You," He had pronounced, clicking his tongue, "Are an imbecile."

Alfred had then shooed him away to begin patching Dick up, telling him, in far more polite terms, more or less of the same thing. 

But Bruce had been scarily quiet the entire time. He had not said a single word to Dick since he had woken up, had not asked Dick once just what the hell he had been doing in the Bowery in the middle of the night, alone and hurt and across the street from a building that had suddenly and mysteriously blown up only a few minutes before. He was pissed, and Dick could feel the lecture brewing. 

He was probably just waiting for Alfred to pronounce him well enough to be subjected to such an ordeal. 

He heard the metallic snip of Alfred's scissors. "Right, lad." He said, patting Dick gently on the arm. "All finished." 

"Thanks, Alfred." Dick said, flashing him a quick smile, which the older man did not return. 

"I trust, Master Dick, that you won't think of ever do something this foolish again." He said with a sniff, giving Dick a look that let him know he was far from being off the hook. Dick sighed. Between Alfred and Bruce, he was really in for it. 

Sure enough...

"What were you thinking?" Bruce spat at him from across the room as Alfred turned away. "Going off on your own without telling any of us where you were? Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?! You could have gotten yourself killed!" 

"I'm not an idiot, Bruce," Dick snapped back. "I knew what I was doing." 

"And what exactly was that?" 

"I was following up on a lead for a case." Dick lied easily, avoiding Bruce's eyes. 

"You don't have any cases involving the Bowery." 

"I meant a case I'm working with the GCPD." 

"What case?" 

"Sorry, Bruce, you know the rules: I'm not at liberty to discuss details of an open investigation with a civilian." Dick said airily, knowing that, the reminder that Bruce was in fact a mere civilian and had no real standing in official law enforcement, would piss him off more than anything else he could have said. 

"Grayson, you are an absolute disgrace!" Damian called imperiously from where he was sitting across the room, his face twisted into a scowl that was frighteningly similar to Bruce's. "You will show my father the respect he deserves and you will answer-" 

"Damian, shouldn't you be in bed?" Dick interrupted him impatiently. "You have school in the morning." 

"No, I don't." Damian reminded him smugly. "It's Veteran's Day. Which means I am exempt from those ridiculous 'bedtime' rules and I can stay up all night long if I so ch-" 

"Damian, go to bed." Bruce ordered, apparently in no mood to be dealing with both Dick and Damian at the moment.

"What?!" Damian cried indignantly, whipping around to gape at Bruce in shock. "But, Father-"

"We're not going back out again tonight." Bruce told him firmly. "You might as well just go to bed." 

"But why not?" Damian protested heatedly. 

"Because your brother has a head injury and he needs to be monitored closely for the next few hours." 

"That is entirely his problem-" 

"Damian, upstairs." 

Damian huffed and stomped away. Only until his fading footsteps disappeared completely did Bruce turn back to Dick. "What were you doing at the Harbor House?" He growled. "And I mean what were you really doing?" 

"Bruce, I told you. There's an ongoing investigation that I was assigned to and I thought I found a connection." 

"Hmm." Was all Bruce said to that, but Dick could tell he didn't believe a word of anything he'd said. "And what exactly happened that caused it to blow up?" 

Dick shrugged. "I don't know. Faulty wiring? Homeless guy forgot to put out his cigarette? Insurance fraud? Your guess is as good as mine." 

"...I see." Bruce said, narrowing his eyes at Dick. "I suppose we'll just have to wait for the fire marshal's official report, then." 

"Guess so." Dick agreed nonchalantly, glaring back at him. 

For a while the two simply glowered silently at one another. Dick tried not to squirm under Bruce's searching gaze, knowing that if he let his mask slip even slightly, then it would all be over and Bruce would know everything. Hell, maybe he already did. You never quite knew with Bruce - it was always impossible to tell he was thinking. 

But finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Bruce's shoulders slumped slightly, and he heaved a sigh. 

"Right." He muttered, turning away from Dick. He sounded exhausted, and in a vague kind of way, almost sad. "I'm going to take a shower and then work for a little bit. Alfred, when you're done, will you check and make sure Damian went to bed?" 

"Of course, Master Bruce." 

"Thank you, Alfred. Good night." 

Dick watched Bruce suspiciously as he retreated from the medical bay. That had been way too easy. Hell, compared to some of the arguments they'd had over the years, that barely qualified as a fight. What was going on? Why wasn't Bruce pushing Dick for answers? It wasn't like Bruce to just give up like this - what was he playing at? Why wasn't he freaking out? 

And then Dick felt a sudden jolt of terror as something began to slowly dawn on him. He couldn't remember what had happened after Bruce found him, or anything that was said on the ride home...was it possible Bruce already knew everything that had happened? Dick glanced up at Bruce nervously, and, as if sensing his gaze, Bruce turned and looked back at Dick, his face infuriatingly blank.

"You're benched." Was all he said. 

"What?!" 

"You're injured. And you lied to me." Bruce cocked his head slightly, studying him, and his expression softened slightly. "I don't know what's going with you right now, Dick," He said. "But I can't work with you if I can't trust you."

"Like the way you trusted me when you lied to me about Gordon?" Dick growled back, curling his shaking hands into fists. 

Bruce frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

"Jason!" Dick shouted, his voice echoing across the Cave. Bruce froze. "I'm talking about Jason being back and Gordon asking you to look into it!" 

"...How do you know that?" Bruce demanded. 

"The entire GCPD knows it, Bruce!" Dick howled, springing to his feet and wishing more than anything he could kick something. "It's all anyone can talk about! You really didn't think I'd find out?!" 

Bruce was silent for a long time, considering him. 

"I was going to tell you." Bruce said quietly. 

"When?" Dick asked. "After you locked him away in Arkham? Or when he was standing over me with a gun to my head?" 

"Until I knew for sure that he was back." Bruce said. "I didn't want..." 

But whatever it was Bruce didn't want, he either couldn't bring himself to say or didn't know how. Dick stared at him, chest heaving, and Bruce bowed his head. 

"Do you know for sure if he's back?" Dick eventually asked. 

"I...haven't found anything that says he is." Bruce admitted reluctantly. 

"So you don't think he's back?" 

Bruce was quiet for much longer this time. "I don't know." 

"But what if he is?" Dick pressed, "If he was back, what would happen? What would you do?" 

"...I don't know." 

A ringing silence followed, and Dick swallowed hard. Bruce watched him carefully, and Dick thought he saw a flicker of concern steal over Bruce's stony eyes. "Dick, if he is here, it's not going to be like last time." He promised. "I'll make sure he won't hurt anybody else again." 

"By locking him up." Dick surmised flatly. 

Bruce looked away. "He's killed people, Dick." He said softly. "We can't ignore that."

"I know that." Dick snapped impatiently. "But what if...what if he's changed? What if things are different now?" 

Bruce stiffened at his words, and Dick saw, his heart sinking, Bruce's expressionless mask slip effortlessly back into place. "Nothing's changed, Dick." He said firmly, his voice hard and cold. "Your brother's gone. And there's nothing anyone can do to change that." 

Dick stared at him. 

"...What happened that night, Bruce?" Dick asked, his words barely more than a whisper. "What makes you so sure there's no other way?'

But Bruce was apparently done talking for the night. Sparing Dick one last, emotionless glance, he turned and walked away without another word. Dick heaved a shaking breath, sinking slowly back onto the gurney, feeling numb and cold and sick. 

How had this happened? How was it possible that this was what their lives had become? Nothing but heartache and regret, held together by the lies they told each other and themselves? It hadn't always been this way. Dick thought he could remember a time when things weren't always this hard. When they were almost happy. So what had happened to them? 

But of course...Dick already knew the answer to that. Jason had died. And when he did, everything changed. Whatever chance of normalcy they'd had, whatever shard of hope and happiness Bruce once had, had died with him that night too. As Dick sat there, thinking about everything they had become and everything they could have been, he found himself remembering, of all things, the first time Jay had gotten hurt on patrol - the first time he had really gotten hurt. 

Jason had only been Robin for about a month, and Dick, still angry and hurt that Bruce had given it away to some kid he'd picked up off the street, had spent that month barely speaking to either of them and avoiding the Manor at all costs. But then Dick had uncovered a gun smuggling ring with ties to the mob, and he had needed Bruce's help to bring it down. Of course, Bruce's help was really more of a package deal at that point, but Jason had been thrilled to be included, practically buzzing with excitement the entire time they spent gathering intel and staking out the club where the smugglers' next big deal was supposed to go down. The night they finally made their move was, as Jay had put it, "the coolest fucking night of his entire life." 

And it was. Right up until the moment a stray bullet tore through Jason's leg and clipped his femoral artery. 

Dick could count the number of times Bruce had let him drive the Batmobile on one hand, and every single one of those times had only ever been a life-or-death situation. That night, tearing through the streets of Gotham, with Jason bleeding out all over the backseat and Bruce screaming at him to hurry, had been one of the worst nights of Dick's entire life. 

Bruce had tied a tourniquet around Jason's leg and had wrapped it tight to stop the bleeding, cradling him close as the boy shuddered and panted and sobbed in his arms. The air had been thick with the metallic, coppery taste of blood, and Dick had driven the car biting and choking down sobs of his own, his heart pounding and his hands shaking so badly he could barely grip the steering wheel. This was on him. This was his fault - he had been the one to ask for help. He could have done this alone, he didn't have to drag Jason and Bruce into it. It was his fault that Jason had been shot. It would be his fault if Jason...

Then he had taken a turn a little too hard, and one of the tires had briefly rolled up onto the sidewalk before it came crashing back down on the road again, jarring the whole car and leaving Jason all but breathless with agony. 

"Sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Dick had yelled above Jason's wails, tears streaming down his face as he continued to weave in and out of traffic. "I'm so sorry, Jason!" 

And then, so soft that Dick almost didn't catch it over the sound of Jason screaming, he heard Bruce's voice. 

"Lay down. Rest here in peace in my arms now. Knowing you're safe from the storms and the rain and from all of your pain. And I'll be here, when only the silence remains." 

Dick had never heard Bruce sing before. Until that night, he didn't think Bruce was capable of such a thing. In fact, he had been so shocked to hear it, that it had taken him a few minutes to realize what Bruce was even doing, and even longer to realize that Jason's screams of pain had died down to mere whimpers. He had glanced up at the rearview mirror, hardly daring to believe what he was hearing, and to his amazement, he saw Bruce's head bowed close to Jason's, who was staring up at Bruce as if his voice was the only thing keeping him tethered to earth. 

Bruce was a lot of things, but there were just as many things he simply wasn't and could never be, and it hadn't taken Dick long to realize that. And eventually, Dick learned to accept the fact that that was just how Bruce was and there was nothing anyone could do to change him. 

Or so he'd thought. Because it had been different with Jason. And Dick had been so jealous of him, of how much Bruce loved him and how obviously he did, so jealous of how easy it was for Jason to make Bruce laugh. And he had been angry. Angry with himself for not being enough. For not being what Bruce needed and for being unable to make Bruce happy the way Jason did. Looking back now, all Dick felt was burning shame for ever having felt that way. 

"-ster Dick?" 

Dick snapped back to reality with a start, looking over to find Alfred watching him worriedly. 

"Sorry, Alfred, what did you say?" 

"I asked if you were alright, dear boy." Alfred told him kindly. 

"Yeah." Dick said quickly, rubbing his eyes. "Yeah, Alfred, I'm fine." 

"Are you?" Alfred asked, raising a single, disbelieving eyebrow at him. 

Dick hesitated. No, he really wasn't - in fact, he was pretty far from fine. Five years ago, his little brother had been murdered and his family was nearly destroyed because of it. Now, somehow, Jason had come back to them, and it seemed they were only unraveling faster at the seams.

And what was worse was that Dick didn't understand why. He didn't understand why, instead of doing everything he could to bring Jason home, Bruce had given up all hope of even trying, and was in fact preparing to lock him away forever. He was confused and angry and scared as hell that everything he cared about was on the brink of collapse and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He didn't know what to do, and he wanted so badly to confess to Alfred everything, because Alfred would. Because Alfred wasn't like Bruce - he could listen without judging, be honest without being brutally and thoughtlessly callous, objective but fair. And because...

Because Alfred had loved Jason too, once. Surely, he would understand why Dick needed to find him, why he needed to know what had happened. Surely Alfred would tell him that he wasn't crazy, that there was something they could do to bring Jason back. 

And yet...

As much as Dick wanted to tell Alfred everything, he was afraid to. Because if he was wrong, if Jason was as much a threat to them and Gotham as Bruce believed he was, and if Alfred knew something that Dick didn't, then he wouldn't hesitate to tell Bruce everything Dick said. 

Dick slowly shook his head. Alfred sighed quietly. 

"Very well, Master Dick." He said. He looked old and tired and sad, and Dick felt a pang of guilt. "Please try and get some rest. I'll be in to check on you in a few hours." 

He turned to leave, and as Dick watched him go, he felt his fear of never learning the truth, of never seeing Jason again, bubble up inside him. 

"Wait, Alfred!" He called out desperately before he could stop himself, and Alfred turned back to him immediately. 

"Yes, Master Dick?"

"I..." Dick choked, blinking furiously against the tears that were threatening to spill over. Alfred frowned at him, looking concerned, but he didn't push. "I don't get it, Alfred. Why is this happening? Why is he doing this?" 

"I'm afraid I don't know, lad." Alfred answered. "Master Bruce has never confided in me the details of what happened that night. Or why he's so convinced that he can't save Jason." 

"Do you think he's right?" Dick asked before he could stop himself. Because even though he was terrified of what Alfred was going to say, he knew that, whatever it was, it was something he needed to hear. 

"About Master Jason?" 

Dick nodded, his heart in his throat. Alfred seemed to consider his answer carefully. 

"I believe, Master Dick, that there are some people that can't be saved, no matter how badly you want them to be." He said at long last, and Dick felt his stomach sink. He bowed his head, nodding a few times to show Alfred he understood. 

"...That being said," Alfred continued. "I also believe that anybody can be saved, so long as they want to be and someone is willing to try." 

Dick looked up at him sharply at that, and was met with Alfred's piercing gaze. 

"Now." He commanded, his tone leaving no room for argument, "Go find our boy and bring him home." 

\----------

Barbara was grinning when she met him at the Clocktower a few hours later. "So," She said, her eyes twinkling. "I heard you had a rough night." 

"What? No. Who said that?" 

"Oh. A little birdie told me. Yeah, they said you did something really stupid last night and almost got yourself killed for it. I said to myself, wait, that doesn't sound like the Dick Grayson I know." 

"I didn't almost get myself killed." Dick grumbled back, his head throbbing. "I was perfectly fine the whole time." 

"Yeah, Bruce probably just overreacted and grounded you for no reason. Hey, shouldn't you be way too old for him to do that?" 

"Yeah, yeah, shut up." Dick groused good-naturedly, passing her the box of donuts he'd picked up on his way over. She took it from him with a smirk, balancing it on her lap as she wheeled her way back to her circle of screens, Dick following closely behind. When she parked herself in front of her desk, he pulled over a chair so he could sit beside her, taking the donut she offered him despite his nervously churning stomach. 

As much as it killed Dick to admit it, the only way he was going to find Jason was if he had help. And if anyone could help him (and more importantly, help him find Jason before Bruce did), it was Barbara. And while Barbara had gone out of her way to help him before in the past, and had gone behind Bruce's back plenty of times herself over the years, Dick wasn't sure if this would be where she finally drew the line. Because it had been Barbara who'd fought alongside Jason when he was Robin, and in some ways, she'd known him even better than Dick once had. And while he knew Barbara had cared about him, Dick also knew there had been sides of Jason that had scared her. And after everything that had happened, Dick had no idea how she felt about Jason now, or how she was going to take the news that he was back again and Dick was looking for him. But it wasn't like he had a lot of other options. And besides...he bit his lip, eyes sweeping over the metal frame of her wheelchair. Surely, if anyone could understand what Jason must have gone through, his anger, it was Babs. 

"Seriously, though, what happened last night?" Barbara asked, taking a quick bite of her donut and keeping her eyes focused on the stream of data that was flitting across one of her screens. "Where were you?" 

"I'm surprised you don't know."

Barbara shrugged. "I try not to spy on you guys when I don't have to. Now are you gonna tell me or is it a secret?" 

"No secret." Dick assured her, picking nervously at the icing. "I was at the Harbor House." 

Barbara stopped chewing, and her eyes slid slowly over to Dick. "The Harbor House?" She echoed in disbelief. Dick nodded, watching her closely. "What on earth were you doing there?" 

"Not sure if you'd believe me." He said, and she scoffed. 

"Please." She said, rolling her eyes. "In this town? I'd believe anything." A small smile teased her lips. "Hang on. Don't tell me you're the one who blew it up, were you? Is that why Bruce grounded you?" 

"No, it wasn't me." 

"So who was it?" 

"If I tell you, will you promise not to tell anyone?" Dick asked her. "Not even Bruce?" 

She hesitated at that, her expression faltering, and then slowly nodded. Dick took a deep, shuddering breath- now or never. 

"It was Jason." 

Barbara blinked. 

"...What?" She asked. 

"Jason's back, Babs." Dick told her. "He was there at the Harbor House last night." 

"...Are you sure? He was the one who blew it up?" 

"Well...I don't know. Probably. I'm not really sure what happened after the first bomb went off." He said, trying to ignore the look of alarm on Barbara's face.

"The fir-Dick, what the hell is going on?" She hissed urgently at him. "Are we under attack?" 

"No." He said quickly. "No, it's not anything like that. Listen, Babs, I found something yesterday when I was looking for him - it makes me think there's something big going on here in Gotham. And I think Jason knows about it too."

"What is it?" 

"I think kids are being taken from Crime Alley by a group of drug dealers." Dick told her. "I don't know why, but I think the GCPD either knows about it and they're covering it up or they're helping them get away with it." 

"Do you have any proof?" 

"No, not yet." 

"Okay." Barbara said, slowly. "And where exactly does Jason fit into all this?" 

"I think," Dick confessed to her. "I think he's trying to stop it. Which is why I need you to help me find him." 

"And if I did that," She asked, "Then what would you do?" 

Dick hesitated. "I...I 'd try to help him stop them." 

"Help him." She repeated flatly. "Dick, you realize Jason's idea of stopping them would probably involve decapitation and C4, right?" 

"I'd make sure it wouldn't come to that." 

"Oh really? How?" She demanded, frowning at him.

"I...I don't know, Babs!" Dick snapped, frustrated. Now that he was saying it out loud, he suddenly realized just how ridiculous this whole thing was, how unlikely it was that he would be able to pull this off. "Look, all I know is that I have to do this. I have to find him and I have to help him. He's gonna get himself killed if he does this alone. And I won't be able to live with myself if that happens, especially if I know I didn't do everything I could to try and help him." 

She was quiet for a while, studying him. 

"It wasn't your fault he died, Dick." Was what she eventually said. "There was nothing you could have done." 

Dick shook his head. "I should have been there, Barbara." 

"Even if you were, would it really have changed anything?" She asked him gently. 

"I don't know." Dick admitted. "Maybe. That's the part that keeps me up at night."

She didn't say anything again for a long time after that, and Dick was so sure she was going to say no. But then she heaved another sigh.

"Dick, he could be anywhere." She said, and Dick looked over at her in shock. "How are we supposed to find him? He could be in a hotel under a fake name, or renting a dozen different apartments right now."

"No, he wouldn't go to a hotel." Dick said firmly. He had given this a fair bit of thought over the past couple hours. "And he wouldn't pay rent. Even if he bribed the landlord, there'd be too many questions. He would need a place where he could come and go as he pleases at any hour of the day without drawing suspicion. No, Babs, he's bought a place." 

"...Well," She said, turning to her computer, her fingers moving quickly across the keyboard. "That actually does help narrow it down quite a bit. I doubt Jason would or could take out a mortgage loan, which means that if he did buy a place he would have paid cash..." 

As she spoke, a list of of names and addresses suddenly popped up on her screen, and Dick felt his heart sink at the sheer number of them. 

"Babs, what is all that?" 

"These are all the Gotham City properties that were purchased in the last five years with cash." Barbara explained, her eyes darting back and forth across the list. "And these are the names of the people who purchased them. Do you think Jason had any safe houses the last time he was here?" 

"Probably." 

"I doubt he would have kept those." Barbara said thoughtfully. "Bruce would have found them. So that probably means we can narrow this down to properties that were purchased after he left." 

Barbara tapped some keys, and the list of properties shortened noticeably. There were still dozens and dozens of them, and most were concentrated in either the very wealthy or the very poor parts of Gotham City. 

Beside him, Babara huffed. "If we knew anything else, I could probably narrow it down further, but this is probably the best I can do." 

"No, this is great, Babs." Dick reassured her, trying to reign in his excitement, "Trust me, it's much better than what I could have done on my own." 

"Oh, believe me, I know." 

Together, the two began to scan the list of names, Dick starting on one side and Barbara on the other, not quite sure what it was they were looking for, but hoping they would recognize it when they saw it. It was boring and frustrating work, the print crunched tightly together, and Dick often found himself reading the same line twice. They had been at it for over half an hour before Dick suddenly stopped, his heart stuttering. Slowly, he reached out and brushed his finger over the screen. 

"Oliver Darcy." He murmured. Beside him, he could see Barbara frown from the corner of his eye. 

"Oliver." She said. "Wasn't 'Oliver Twist' one of the first books Bruce bought him?" 

"Yeah, it was." Dick said quietly, remembering how happy Jason had been when Bruce gave him that stupid book. It was still sitting in Jason's old room, the cover well worn from the years Jason had spent reading it over and over again. 

"And Darcy is...?" 

"I think it's from 'Pride and Prejudice'." Dick said. He saw Barbara glance over at him. 

"He's not being very subtle about it, is he?" 

"No, I guess not." Dick agreed, quickly jotting down the address. 

"Dick, I don't like this," She said. "It's too obvious - what if it's a trap?"

"Yeah, it probably is." He said, turning back to the screen. "But it's all I've got."

The two of them spent the next few hours reading down the rows and columns of names, the sun slowly climbing higher and higher as they worked. Every now and then, one of them would point something out, and Dick would add another name to his growing list. By the time he and Barbara met in the middle, they had collected roughly half a dozen names and addresses. 

...Ernest Bradbury...

...James Connery....

...Ethan McClane...

...Wayne Peterson....

"Oh my God," Dick breathed, staring down at the list he'd compiled. "This is it. This is it, Babs, I know it! One of these is him! I just have to figure out-" He turned to her with a grin, but he was met with folded arms and a glare. "What?" 

She hesitated, and bowed her head. 

"Look, Dick." She said gently. "I know you loved him. I loved him too. But I knew Jason, maybe even better than you did. And don't get me wrong, he was a good kid...but there was a darkness in him, even then." She raised her eyes, her expression grim. "I don't know what happened to him. I'm sure whatever it was is too horrible to even imagine. And I know you want your little brother back, Dick, but that's not who he is anymore. He's not the person we once knew. And you need to accept that. You need to accept that he's not the same and you might not be able to get him back." 

"I know, Babs." 

"Do you?" She asked him, and when he didn't answer, Barbara shook her head regretfully. "Just be careful, Dick. Please." She whispered.


	4. November 11, 3:39 PM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise!
> 
> Posting this a few days earlier than expected.

Dick spent all afternoon checking each of the addresses he and Barbara had found, crisscrossing his way back and forth across Gotham and meeting nothing but empty silence at each one. He had tried to ignore the disappointment that had been mounting with each passing hour, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to do with every unanswered door he met. 

And now, there was only one address left. As Dick made his way there, a part of him couldn't help but wonder if this whole thing was just an enormous waste of time. After seeing Dick last night, after coming so close - too close - to crossing paths with Bruce, Jason was probably long gone by now, vanished with the night to only God knew where. And if the last two years had taught Dick anything, it was that if Jason didn't want to be found, then he wasn't gonna be found. 

Dick exhaled deeply, staring at the crosswalk sign across the street as it counted down the seconds before the light would turn and Dick could begin moving forward again, his fingers tightening impatiently around the steering wheel as he waited. One left, one left, one left...he only had one left. He had been trying all day to ignore the crushing, bitter disappointment that was threatening to take him over, but he knew he wouldn't be able to ignore it any longer if this last safe house turned out to be empty too. 

The light changed, and Dick's foot jerked from the brake to the gas. As he drove, Dick couldn't help but think back to the last apartment he'd tried - a tiny, shithole efficiency nestled in the heart of Crime Alley, only a few blocks away from where Bruce's parents had been gunned down all those years before. 

'This is it,' That stubborn, hopeful little voice in the back of his head had whispered when he'd pulled up to apartment building and he realized just where he was, 'This has to be it - this is where it all began.' 

His heart had been hammering wildly against his ribs when he managed to slip inside, his stomach twisting into knots with each floor he passed. The fluorescent lights had flickered and hummed loudly overhead when he'd finally found the right floor, and he tried not to look too closely at the discolored, spotty patches that lined the baseboards or the garbage that was strewn along the floor - plastic bags, dented beer cans, hand-rolled cigarettes and something that looked suspiciously like a used condom. He'd passed a scantily dressed woman lounging in a doorway, casually lighting a glass pipe. Her eyes had followed Dick silently, raking over his stiff form, but he forced himself to ignore her, trying to appear calm, like he knew exactly what he was doing and he was exactly where he was supposed to be, and fooling absolutely nobody in the process. 

But no one bothered him as he continued down the hall, counting the doors as he went. Most of them were missing their numbers. When he had finally reached the right one, he paused, checking the list of addresses again before reaching out and rapping loudly on the door. He waited, hoping against hope that the door would open and Jason would be there, jagged edges and sharp words like he always was, like nothing had ever changed...

But of course he wasn't. The door remained firmly and unapologetically shut. Dick had swallowed back a sigh, his shoulders slumping in defeat. 

"He ain't been in for a couple days now." 

Dick had looked up sharply at those words, and glancing over, he found an alarmingly thin old man standing a few doors down, squinting back at him distrustfully. His eyes were a shocking, unhealthy shade of yellow, his clothes were ragged and torn, and his hands were trembling so badly that he seemed to be having trouble slipping his key into its lock. Dick had blinked, not quite sure what to make of him and even less sure what to make of his apparent disregard for Crime Alley's most important rules of etiquette: first, look out for no one but yourself, and second, mind your own damn business. 

"Do you know where he went?" He found himself asking, somewhat reluctantly. 

"Who's asking?" 

Dick had hesitated, wondering what he was supposed to say. He had no idea if Jason was even using the same alias as the one he'd used to purchase the apartment, much less what his neighbors knew about him, or thought they knew, if anything at all. And the last thing he wanted was to draw suspicion to Jay and attention to himself. 

"...Nobody." He eventually muttered, looking back at chipped and peeling paint that barely coated Jason's door. 

"'Hmm. 'Nobody', huh? Well, in my experience, 'nobody' usually means 'somebody'. And nobody goes looking for somebody for no reason. 'Specially in a place like this." The man jiggled his keys impatiently, but when the lock refused to turn, he abandoned the attempt altogether with a frustrated huff. From the corner of his eye, Dick saw him take a few shuffling steps closer towards him.

"You look like him." He had then announced, in such a way it almost sounded like an accusation, and when Dick glanced back over at the old man, he found him scrutinizing him closely. 

Dick had swallowed hard at that, his throat painfully dry. "He's my brother." He admitted quietly, and the man had slowly nodded. 

"Yeah." He'd agreed. "Seems about right."

"Do you know where he is?" Dick asked again. "I need to find him. Please. I...I think he's in trouble." 

"If he's living here, he's definitely in trouble, son." The man told him. He pulled a cigarette out from his pocket and he glanced up at Dick. "You got a light?" 

Dick shook his head. "Sorry, no." 

"Figures." The man muttered, sticking the unlit cigarette in his mouth and sucking on it. "Not sure where your brother is." He said. "He left two days ago. Hasn't been back since." 

"And you don't know where he went?" 

"Just 'cause I seen him around don't mean we was friendly." The man answered moodily. "Kid kept to himself. And nobody was about to fuck around with him, even hurt bad as he was." 

"What do you mean?" 

Dick turned the old man's words over and over again in his head as he pulled up to the last apartment building on his list. Apparently, Jason had shown up at the Crime Alley efficiency almost a week earlier and, from what Dick could only assume, had used it as a base right up until a few days before the incident at the Harbor House. But why he had suddenly abandoned it and moved elsewhere was beyond Dick - why would Jason switch apartments right before launching his attack against the black tar dealers? Dick could understand if he had left after last night and everything that had happened, but why before? The only thing Dick could think of, as he climbed the stairs to the top floor, his footsteps echoing loudly throughout the halls, was that this last safe house was technically closer to the pier, and if what that man had said was true, and Jason had been hurt, then maybe...

Dick shook his head. 'Don't go there' He told himself. 'You can't afford to assume anything when it comes Jay.'

Dick came to an abrupt halt before the large, sliding steel door of Jason's last apartment, staring at the number that had been etched into the surface and trying to ignore his shaking hands. God, what was he gonna do if this turned out to be a dead end too? Hesitatingly, he raised his fist and pounded on the door. 

A few seconds passed. Dick stood, barely breathing as he strained to hear movement on the other side, but he didn't hear anything. The silence was so heavy that he could feel it pressing against his eardrums. Still, Dick waited, closing his eyes. The seconds rolled into minutes, and Dick felt his heart sink. He hung his head, eyes prickling with frustrated tears. This was it. This was the last address he had. And Jason wasn't here. Just like he wasn't at any of the others. He wasn't anywhere. 

He was gone again. 

Dick heaved a shuddering breath and abruptly turned away, wishing he had never agreed to cover Burns' shift. Wishing he he never found Anthony and learned what little truth he had about Jose Desoto and the GCPD. Wishing he had never gone to the Harbor House and wishing more than anything else that he had never found Jason. Because now...now he was gonna have to live with the fact that he had come so far, had been so close, only for Jason to have slipped through his fingers once again...

Dick looked up and stopped dead in his tracks. 

There, right in front of him at the top of the stairwell, one foot hanging suspended in the air and frozen stiff was shock, was Jason. 

For a moment, the two could do little more than simply stare at each other, Jason in open, absolute horror at him, and Dick, first in amazement at his little brother, and then alarm the longer he looked at him. 

In the light of day, and without a fresh concussion to jumble his thoughts, Dick could see him clearly for the first time. There was faint, yellow bruising around his eye and mouth, and jagged cuts across his cheeks and temples, ruby red against his pale skin. There were dark bags under his eyes, and sharp shadows that marked the hollows of his cheeks. He looked awful, and Dick took a small step toward him, his mouth falling open in concern. Jason reacted immediately. 

With a snarl, he pulled his gun out from where he'd stuck it in his pants, pointing it at Dick, who raised his hands slowly in response. Jason glowered at him for a minute longer, then glanced suspiciously around the empty hallway before turning back to Dick. 

"Where's Bruce?" He spat. 

"He's not here." Dick answered softly, his eyes flickering over him worriedly. Jason was holding the gun in his right hand, bracing it with his left. And the way he was holding himself, his left arm so stiff and tight to his side, made Dick think there was something wrong with it. But the way he was breathing...maybe it was his ribs? 

"Bullshit."

"I swear it's just me, Jason." Dick assured him. "Bruce has no idea that I'm here." 

Jason looked as though he seriously doubted that. "You sure about that?" He said dryly, and Dick hesitated. 

"Well," He conceded. "I don't know, maybe he does. I mean, it's Bruce, right?" 

"I told you not to follow me." Jason growled accusingly. He sounded pissed. 

"I know." Dick said, soothingly, taking a small step toward him. Jason backed away from him, cocking his gun as he did. "Please, Jay, I just needed to see that you were okay." 

"Well, you've seen me. And as you can see, I'm doing just fine. Or at least I was until you showed up." Jason said. "So you can leave now." 

"Wait, Jay." Dick pleaded, "Please, just listen to me. For five minutes, please, that's all I'm asking. I just want to talk." 

"About what?" 

"About Jose Desoto." Dick told him, and Jason tensed visibly. "I know what happened that night." 

"Then you know I killed him." Jason said coldly, and Dick flinched at that, at hearing Jason admit it so casually. 

"But you only did it to save that kid." 

"Trust me, Dick. That's not the only reason I did it." 

Dick hesitated briefly, searching Jason's face for any sign that he was lying, but he found none. Jason stared resolutely back, and Dick shook his head. "I don't care about that." He said firmly, deciding he would worry about that later. "I just want to help you." 

"'Help me'? As in what, exactly?" Jason asked, taking a measured step toward Dick. "Arresting me? Locking me up in Arkham and leaving me there to rot?" 

"What? No!" Dick sputtered, horrified at the thought and even more so in the direction this conversation was going. "No, Jason-!" 

"Why not?" Jason growled. His arm was shaking slightly. "Isn't that what you do? Put away the bad guys?"

"You're not-"

"I'm not like you, Dick." Jason said quietly, taking another step closer to Dick. "I'm not one of you. Not anymore. And I will shoot you, if I have to. So if you want to bring me in, you'd better be prepared to kill me first." 

"That's not what I want!" Dick shouted desperately, "That's never been what I wanted!" He closed his eyes, forcing himself to take a few deep breaths, and when he opened them again, he found that Jason had lowered his gun, just slightly, and was staring at Dick with a strange, unreadable look on his face. 

"I've thought about you," Dick whispered. "Every day since you died. Every day. I've thought about all the things I'd do differently if I had the chance. All the things I'd say to you if I could. I would have given anything - anything - to see you. Just to talk to you again. Even for just five minutes." 

Something flickered over Jason's face at that, but it was too quick for Dick to figure out just what it was. "So why didn't you?" He asked eventually. "You didn't seem that interested in talking that last time I was here. In fact you seemed pretty hell-bent on making sure you never had to see me again." 

"I didn't know it was you." Dick confessed to him. "Bruce was the one who figured it out, and he insisted on going after you alone. He didn't even tell me until after you had left." 

Jason glared at him. "It doesn't matter." He muttered. "It's not like it actually changes anything."

"What are you talking about?" Dick asked him incredulously. "It changes everything! Look, Jason, we can figure this out-"

"No. We can't." Jason growled, shaking his head. His knuckles were shockingly white against the dark metal of his gun. 

Dick stared at him, feeling as though he were dangerously close to losing Jason all over again, as though he was slowly drifting further and further away from him with every moment that passed, and he took another small step forward, desperate to pull him back. 

"Little Wing," He murmured, the old nickname slipping out before he could stop it. "Please."

Jason sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes scrunching tightly closed as though he were in great pain. "God, what do you want from me, Dick?" He hissed. 

"Five minutes." Dick whispered. "That's all. Please. I came all this way to find you. Just give me five minutes, and after you've heard what I've got to say, I'll leave. But please, Jay, at least hear me out." 

Jason didn't answer him for a long time after that, and Dick felt a fluttering thrill of panic as the silence stretched on. He had known finding Jason would be a long shot and had spent the last few hours trying to steel himself against the disappointment that had been threatening to swallow him whole if he didn't, but now that he was here, now that he had come so far, just what was he supposed to do if Jason told him to leave? How was he going to move forward from here, knowing what he did now and pretending like nothing had changed? 

At least he'd managed to find Jason at all, he tried to console himself. At least he got to see his little brother one last time before they parted ways forever. Surely, that would be enough...

Right?

And then, to his complete surprise, Jason slowly lowered his gun. He didn't put it away, but he kept it pointed at the ground instead of at Dick. 

"Five minutes." Jason told him shortly. 

\----------

Jason kept his eyes fixed on Dick the entire time he unlocked the sliding steel door and pulled it open, gesturing wordlessly for Dick to move inside with a quick jerk of his head. He still hadn't holstered his gun, and it was obvious that he was far from thrilled with the situation, but Dick considered it a win that Jay was at least willing to hear him out and that he no longer had the gun pointed directly at him. 

Still. Dick knew he was treading an incredibly fine line between fear (maybe even hatred), and reluctant trust with Jay, and it was one that tipped heavily toward disaster. One wrong word, one movement too quick, and any chance he had of Jason accepting his help could be irretrievably lost. So Dick forced himself to move slowly and carefully across the threshold, concentrating on keeping his shoulders relaxed and resisting the urge to shove his hands into his pockets, not wanting to spook Jay any more than he already had. 

But as he moved further into the apartment, he couldn't help but glance around the large, open space, admiring the the high ceilings and the great galvanized beams that ran across the expanse. It was sparsely furnished, the rooms flowing seamlessly from one to another, and the brick walls were painted a cold, bright white. Enormous windows lined one wall, stretching from the ceiling to the floor, and looking out, Dick could just see the edge of Crime Alley several blocks away. He turned slowly back to Jason, who was still watching him apprehensively. 

"Nice place." Dick said lamely, flashing him a small smile. "I'd kill for something like this." 

"Yeah, well. That's pretty much what you gotta do to have it." Jason told him flatly, and Dick forced himself not to react to that. "Look, no offense, Dick, but I'm really hoping you didn't come all the way here just to talk about real estate. 'Cause if you did, I may as well just go ahead and shoot myself now." 

"No, you're right, I didn't." Dick assured him quickly, moving toward the space Jason seemed to have designated as his living room. "Do you mind if I sit down?" He asked, motioning to a nearby leather chair. Jason just glared at him, not saying a word. "Right, I'm gonna sit down." He muttered, more to himself than to Jay, sinking into the waiting chair. Dick looked back up at his brother, who stood with his arms crossed. "Are you gonna sit?" 

"No. Get to the point." Jason snapped. "I said five minutes and I meant it, Dick. Why are you here?" 

"I'm here because I want to help you." Dick repeated. 

"With what?" Jason asked him irritably. 

"The missing Crime Alley kids." Dick told him, and if Jason was surprised that Dick knew what was going on, he didn't show it. "That's why you're here, isn't it? The black tar dealers have been taking kids from Crime Alley and you're trying to stop them. Right? I want to help." 

"And what," Jason drawled, "Makes you think I need or want your help?" 

Dick paused. He had never even entertained the possibility that Jason wouldn't want his help with this - he had always just assumed that once Jason understood they were on the same side, then he would surely put aside his distrust for Dick for the sake of saving those kids. That surely Jason would recognize just how valuable Dick could be to him, to ending this whole thing once and for all. He hadn't even considered the alternative. 

"Because." He said, uncertainly. "Because if you want to bring them down, you're gonna need to have a cop on your side." 

Jason's scowl faltered at those words. For a brief moment, he looked confused, but he schooled his features quickly. 

"Pfft, I don't need anybody." Jason scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Least of all a cop. I've done this plenty of times before, Dick. And not to bruise your ego or anything, but it's really not that hard." 

Dick blinked. "You've done this before?" 

"Um. Yeah." Jason said, giving him another odd look. "Haven't you?" 

"No." Dick said, staring at him. He had taken on drug and human trafficking rings before, more times than he could count, and had weathered more than his fair share of corruption scandals, but never had he encountered a situation like this, an international operation that the GCPD was directly involved in. He was shocked to learn that not only Jason had, but apparently multiple times at that. 

"Well then how useful could you possibly be?" Jason asked him coldly. 

Dick remained silent. Because really, how was he supposed to argue with that? He had never done this before. He didn't know what he was doing. And apparently Jason did. So what could he possibly have to offer him? What could he possibly say to convince Jay to let him help?

And yet...there was something about this whole conversation that felt off, almost as though he and Jason were talking about two very different things. Dick wasn't sure what it was, but if felt almost as though he was missing something. 

Something important. 

"...Yeah, you're probably right." Dick agreed quietly. "If anybody could do this, it'd be you. But jeez, Jay, don't you think it would be so much easier and faster if you had someone on the inside?" 

"On the inside of what?" Jason asked, sounding dangerously impatient, and then it finally dawned on Dick what was going on. He wasn't the one who was missing something - Jason was. He sat back, stunned. 

"D-do you not know?" 

"Know what?" 

"About the GCPD." 

"What about the GCPD?" Jason snapped. 

"...Oh my God." Dick breathed. "You don't know." 

"I'd be happy to find out. Dick." Jay growled pointedly. 

With a sigh, Dick quickly recapped everything he'd learned. He told Jason about the extra shift he'd agreed to work, and his assignment to help Detective Schreiner track down a missing potential witness. He told him how he'd found Anthony, and everything the boy had told him. He told Jason how he'd hacked the GCPD server and what he'd read in Desoto's records - about all the drug charges he'd acquired over the years and how they had abruptly stopped. He told Jason about the little girl who had vanished a year before, and how the investigating officer had suspected Desoto was involved. And he told Jason all about how that same officer was suddenly involved in a tragic accident only a few days later, and the lead was never pursued any further. 

"Don't you see?" Dick asked, watching Jason closely, who, in the time it had taken Dick to tell his story, had moved from standing behind his couch to collapsed on top it, his head in his hands. "Only the GCPD had access to that report. They were the only ones who would have known that Walden suspected Desoto was involved, and that he was planning on bringing him in for questioning. And that if he did, he might figure out what was really going on. That's why they..." Dick trailed off, swallowing dryly. "It's not just the black tar dealers, Jay. The GCPD is in on it too. They've been covering up the missing Crime Alley kids. Maybe even helping the dealers kidnap them. I don't have any real evidence of that yet, but I know that's what's going on." 

Jason didn't answer him. "So," Was all he said, so softly Dick almost didn't hear him. "That's how they've been doing it." He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Well, this complicates things a bit." He muttered darkly to himself. Dick frowned at him. 

"This doesn't change anything does it? You're still gonna try and stop them aren't you?" 

"Yeah, but I didn't know the GCPD was involved." Jason snapped. "I thought it was just the black tar dealers." 

"And what exactly," Dick asked, "do a bunch of Mexican drug dealers want with Crime Alley kids anyway?" 

"They're not after just any Crime Alley kids, Dick." Jason told him. "They want orphans. Foster kids. The ones nobody's gonna miss and nobody's gonna come looking for when they're gone." 

"But why?" Dick pushed. "What are they doing with them?" 

Jason was quiet for a while. He seemed to be thinking carefully about his answer. Dick waited patiently, knowing that if he pushed Jason it wouldn't end well. 

"Do you remember what it's like driving out to the Kent farm?" Was what he eventually said. 

Dick blinked, not sure what that had to do with anything, but he nodded anyway. 

"Nothing but corn and wheat fields, as far as you can see in every direction. Like the sea." Jason muttered. "That's what it's like down there. The entire coast - nothing but poppy fields, marijuana farms, and cocoa plants. Miles and miles and miles of it. And it's all destined for America." He shook his head. "They start harvesting it in the summer. Take it to the border towns in the fall. By November the cartels are ready to move it into the States." He smirked slightly. "'Cept they've had a few setbacks this year..."

"I'm guessing you had something to do with that?" Dick asked sarcastically. Jason's eyes flickered over to him, and from the look on his face, Dick knew that he'd had everything to do with whatever setbacks the cartel had faced. 

"Do you have any idea what's going on in Juarez right now?" Jason asked instead of answering him, and when Dick shook his head blankly, he continued. "All out civil war. The cartel that's controlled Juarez for years - the one that's behind the black tar trade - is on the brink of being overthrown by a rival gang. And whoever controls Juarez controls one of the biggest ports into the United States. Believe me, each side is doing whatever they have to to make it theirs." Jason's eyes narrowed. "You would not believe what's going on at the border right now. What they're doing. What they're capable of. They're revolutionizing the drug trade - and they're using the Crime Alley kids to do it." 

"...They're using the kids to smuggle drugs across the border." Dick realized suddenly. Jason nodded. 

"Just imagine," He murmured darkly. "A drug mule with American citizenship who can move back and forth across the border as many times as they want. One nobody would ever suspect and someone who would just be waved on through every single time without being searched too carefully." He glared at a point somewhere beyond Dick's shoulder. "And one that would have no choice but to do exactly whatever the cartel tells them to do." 

"But I still don't understand." Dick protested. "How are they even getting these kids?" 

"As far as we can tell, someone's telling the black tar dealers which kids to take. We just figured they'd bribed the foster parents or the social workers. That's how they had copies of their birth certificates. But if you're saying the GCPD is involved..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "It was supposed to end with Desoto." He said with a small sigh. "He was the one who brought the kids to the border. And as far as I knew, he was the one in charge. I thought that if I could just take him out, the whole thing would just collapse. Just my luck it wouldn't be that easy." 

"So if you thought Desoto was the one in charge, then what happened last night?" Dick asked him. "How'd you find out about the meeting?" 

Jason pulled something out of his jacket pocket and held it up for Dick to see. It was the latest iPhone model, clad in an obnoxiously gaudy designer case. 

"This was Desoto's phone." He said, and now that he said it, Dick remembered that, in the excitement of finding Desoto's wallet and drugs, it had taken the GCPD a ridiculously long time to realize that his phone was missing. "I took it that night. Used his thumbprint to unlock it and then changed the password." He glanced at Dick. "I was planning on using it to track down the other black tar dealers and take them out if I had to, one by one. But there were all these messages on it from someone called 'the Boss' - about some meeting they was supposed to have. And I figured that if they were all gonna be in one place, well...two birds, one stone, so to speak." 

"And you really have no idea who he is?" Dick asked him. "The Boss?" 

"If I did, do you really think I would have wasted my time going down there last night?" Jason asked testily. "Most of the contacts in here are under code names. I have no idea who any of them are." 

"Mahoney said something last night." Dick remembered suddenly. "Something that sounded like a code name - he said the Boss and the Czar were going to decide what to do next. Do you know what that means? Who that is?" 

"Yeah. The head of the Juarez cartel - Eduardo Bardales - they call him the Czar." 

"Why?" 

Jason shrugged lopsidedly, and Dick frowned at the odd movement. "Don't know, don't care." 

"How'd you hurt your shoulder?" Dick asked him suddenly, hoping the question would catch him off guard and he'd get an honest answer. 

"Hauling your useless, unconscious ass out of a burning building." Jason snarled. "You're welcome, by the way." 

Dick couldn't help but chuckle slightly, even though he didn't believe Jay was being entirely honest with him. 

"God, I've missed you, Jay." He said softly, shaking his head fondly. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jason rear back, as though Dick had slapped him. "I'm glad you're back." 

"Alright, let's get something straight, Dick." Jason snapped. "I am not back. You and I are not friends. And the second this is over, I'm gone." He stood abruptly up, and began to pace furiously across his apartment, refusing to look at Dick, who watched him quietly. 

"And until then?" He asked. "What are you planning on doing until then?" 

"Probably best if I didn't tell you." Jason said coolly. "I don't think you'll like it." 

"It doesn't have to be this way, Jason." 

"Yes, it does." Jason snarled, shaking his head and looking at Dick with disgust. "You really don't get it, do you? I'm not gonna let this go - and I'm not gonna let them get away with this. After what those sons-a-bitches did to those kids, I'm gonna make sure nothing like this ever happens again. And I'm gonna make sure everyone knows exactly what will happen to them if they ever even think about it." 

Dick's skin prickled at those words. "What do you mean?" Dick asked him. "What happened to the kids?" 

Jason gave him a look that told Dick just how stupid he really was. 

"What do you think happened to them, Dick?" He snapped. "They're dead." 

"...What?" Dick heard himself ask faintly. 

"What? You really expected anything different? Please. Like those kids ever even stood a chance." Jason said through his teeth. "What do you think happened the first time one of them mouthed off? Refused to cooperate? You think the cartel would have stood for that? No. They would have made an example of them. Or what about the rival gangs? You think they care that the competition is a defenseless little kid? No. If anything, they see them as an easy target. And as for the girls, well. I'm sure you can imagine what happens to them." 

Dick fell silent again after that, as the full implication of what Jason was saying finally sunk in - of children betrayed by the force sworn to protect them, taken from their beds, snatched from street corners and sold into slavery. Of being mercilessly slaughtered far from home and with no one to save them. No one to even realize they were gone. No one to even care. 

No one...except Jason. 

Dick looked up at his brother. 

"I want to help you." 

Jason laughed cruelly. "No way in hell am I accepting help from you and Bruce."

"I already told you, Bruce doesn't know I'm here." Dick said, somewhat impatiently. 

"But he is looking for me, isn't he?" Jason said. "He knows I'm here?" 

"He doesn't know for sure." Dick admitted. "He just suspects." 

"Yeah, and how long do you think it will be before he finds me?" Jason challenged. "Come on, Dick, this is Bruce we're talking about!" 

"We still have time." Dick said. "And if we work together, then maybe we can find a way to stop them before Bruce even figures out you're back." 

"And then what?" Jason asked. "We save the day and what, you just let me walk away?" 

Dick swallowed. 

"Yeah, Jay." He said softly. "I let you walk away." 

"Liar." Jason said bitterly. He glared at Dick. "No way you'd let me go. Not after everything I've done. I've killed people, Dick. I've killed people and I don't regret it either. And if I had to do it all over again, believe me I would. Or have you forgotten that?" 

"Yeah, Jay, I know!" Dick snapped, shooting to his feet. "Believe me, I know, and it kills me! You have no idea how bad it kills me knowing what you've done!" He shook his head, looking over at Jay, who was watching him with that unreadable look on his face. "But if that's what it takes for you to accept my help, then I'll do it. I'll let you go and I won't try and stop you." 

Jason looked as though he seriously doubted that. "Why?" He asked. 

"Because you're my brother." Dick told him. 

"I'm not your brother, Dick. Not anymore." 

"Yeah, that's what I keep hearing." Dick said bitterly. "I don't buy it." 

Jason's expression didn't change in the slightest. "Well, then, you're an idiot." 

"Yeah, I keep hearing that too." 

Jason's mouth twitched ever so slightly at that before his face became an expressionless mask again, studying Dick silently. Dick met his gaze evenly, wondering if Jason knew just how much like Bruce he really was. He doubted it, and he doubted Jason would appreciate hearing him say so. After a while, Jason heaved a sigh. 

"Fine." He agreed to Dick's surprise, though he sounded as if he had just agreed to undergo exploratory surgery without anesthesia. Dick took a step closer, grinning widely, and Jason pointed accusingly at him. "But," He said firmly. "This is is on my terms, got it? The second this takes a turn I don't like, you and I are done. Understand?" 

Dick nodded, still grinning. 

"You don't have to look so happy about it, you know." Jason grumbled at him. 

"I know." 

Jason shook his head, rolling his eyes in response. "Don't make me regret this, Dick." 

"Wouldn't dream of it." 

"Hmph." Was all Jason said to that before he fixed Dick with his cold, determined gaze again. "Alright." He said. "Let's get started."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As far as this series goes, I have a very vague idea of what I would like to happen next. I'm not sure if I'm going to do anything else with it, but if I do decide to do more, I probably won't post anything for a long time. 
> 
> Anyways, thanks so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed it!


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